Hedge Fund Ikos Justifies Spying On An Employee's Family

After news of a hedge fund's covert spying activities
hit the Financial Times this weekend, Ikos responded with a
reportedly "lengthy"
public statement explaining why it spied on an employee (and
his family).

(Background:
A spy hired by Ikos founder Elena Ambrosiadou allegedly went out
of her way to befriend Tobin "Sam" Gover and his wife. She began
looking after their son. She spent Christmas with the family.
Then Gover found out she was a spy. He sued Ambrosiadou for
infiltrating his family in order to "aid" litigation against him
and she paid him damages.)

In its public statement, Ikos says that it was "necessary and
appropriate" to spy on its employee, Tobin Gover.

The firm's public
statement says that Ikos undertook “investigations”
to “protect its business... [and that] any investigations
authorised ... were necessary and appropriate...[because Ikos was
engaged in an] avalanche [of litigation]" with former
employees centred on the firm’s co-founder, Martin Coward,
according to the Financial Times.

Gover's side of the story is a big different. The charges he
filed against Ikos founder Elena Ambrosiadou say that Ambrosiadou
didn't just spy on him and his family, it says that she developed
a Monaco surveillance operation against a number of former top
employees of the firm and codenamed it “Operation Apollo.”

The operation seems to have begun around the time that
Ambrosiadou began splitting from her husband, a co-founder of the
firm, Martin Coward. Ambrosiadou reportedly suspected that Coward
was planning to sequester a number of traders, steal trade
secrets from Ikos and "misappropriate" them.

Ikos' statement asserts that the operation was justified. The
statement accuses Mr Coward “and his acolytes” of conspiring to
take control of Ikos and “misappropriate its technology,"
according to the FT.